Gatekeepers Book 1: Darkness

Exam at Daybreak

"Hey, Draycos, wake up!"

Draycos could hear a voice hissing at as he slept, but he didn't bother to listen, and just turned over in the bed, moaning softly. He was about to drift off to sleep again when something wet splashed all over his face. Draycos bolted up, sputtering as he looked around. Zero was in his cell once more, but he had a serious expression on his face this time. An empty picture hung upside down from Zero's clawed hand; he had apparently dumped the whole thing of water on Draycos.

"W-what was that for?" Draycos sputtered as he shook his head, sending droplets of water flying out of his hair.

"You know why," Zero growled. "The assessment test, remember? It's almost daybreak, and some of the other prisoners have already gathered in the main cavern." He proceeded to squeeze himself out of the cell, motioning to the wooden table next to Draycos's bed with his tail. A bowl of mush was sitting there. "Go ahead and eat, then hurry up and get down to the cavern."

"Alright, alright," Draycos muttered, picking up his boots and the bowl of food as he made his way out of his cell. Poseidon was sitting at his desk, and Damrabe was leaning against the wall next to the open door. Zero was nowhere to be seen; he had apparently woken Draycos up and left immediately upon doing so. Poseidon and Damrabe looked at Draycos as he came out of the cell and sat himself in front of the fireplace filled with sea-green flames. Draycos said nothing and began to quickly consume the food as the fire dried out his wet clothing. Within minutes he had finished off his food, slipped on his boots and stood up.

"Well, I'll be off now," Draycos announced, heading for the door. "Thanks for coming to see me off, everyone."

The two dragons remained silent as Draycos walked through the doorway. But as Draycos made to close the door behind him, Poseidon finally spoke up.

"Be careful during the exam, Draycos," he warned. "It could easily get very dangerous for you, especially the last one. And, well, good luck, I guess."

Draycos stopped for a moment and looked over his shoulder at Poseidon. He smiled, then proceeded to close the door completely before turning back around and taking a deep breath. He took off at a jog to the entrance of the cave and jumped over the edge, which was around a hundred feet in the air. Grabbing the ledge before falling, he started to quickly climb down the rocky wall, mostly just using his hands to climb down and only using his feet when there was a large foothold to place a foot on. Scaling down the wall in roughly a minute, Draycos jumped down to the floor and looked around.

There was a line of prisoners starting at the edge of the opening in the cavern, and more and more prisoners were crawling out of their caves to join in the line, as well. At the front of the line was a group of dragon guardsmen, along with Vertex. One by one, Vertex bound the hands of each prisoner together, created a length of chain attached to a collar on their necks, and handed them off to a pair of guards. The guards then flew out of the cavern in pairs with a prisoner hanging between them. For the dragon prisoners, the bindings on their wings were undone so they could fly themselves, but chains were still bound to each leg that the guards kept a tight grip on.

Draycos hurried and got into line before a large crowd of prisoners gathered in line. He got in line behind a rather large dragon that walked on all fours and started waiting. Someone shoved him roughly from behind, and he turned around to see Brock towering over him, glaring down at him past his now crooked nose.

"Oh, hey, it's you," Draycos commented. "You're taking part in this as well?"

"Obviously," Brock snapped. He didn't care to cause a commotion today; he didn't want to get banned from this year's games for any misconduct. "Everyone wants in on this." He made eye contact with Draycos. "I realize we don't exactly see eye to eye with each other, but I want the chance to take you down in the games, so I'll give you some info you'll find interesting."